US Seeks New Keystone Pipeline Route.....

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States said on Thursday it will study a new route for the Keystone XL Canada-to-Texas oil pipeline, delaying any final approval beyond the U.S. 2012 election and sparing U.S. President Barack Obama a politically risky decision during an election year.

The decision was a victory for environmental groups, who say producing oil sands crude emits large amounts of greenhouse gases. It was a blow to TransCanada Corp, which planned to build and operate the conduit.

The State Department said that based on past experience a study of the new route could be completed as early as the first three months of 2013, well past the November 6 2012 U.S. presidential election.

Analysts have said a long delay could kill the pipeline project because it would cause shippers and refiners to look for alternative routes to get Canadian oil sands crude.

The White House denied that the decision to look into a new route was politically motivated.

While the decision may hurt Obama with industry and could allow Republicans to argue that he has cost the nation jobs, it also may shore up his support from environmentalists, an important constituency for Obama and his fellow Democrats.

Charles Ebinger of the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington said the decision would hurt U.S.-Canadian relations at least temporarily given Canada's strong backing for the pipeline and was probably a mixed bag for Obama politically.

"It will set back our relations with Canada -- not irreparably because, of course, we have so many areas of common interest," he said.....snip~

Here is another one.....lets take for granted what the Canadians have that are so many common interests. We already get most of our Oil from Canada. But there is no denying that it will cost jobs. But it is not like the Jobs would have been perm for Americans anyways. Not mass quantity.

Don't only Practice your Art, but force your way into its Secrets, For it and Knowledge can Raise men to the Divine!!!!!Ludwig Van Beethoven ~

With a second term now in hand, President Obama no longer can delay a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline and must either side with environmentalists within his party or greenlight a major step toward North American energy independence. The pipeline decision could be an early sign for the direction of Mr. Obama’s green agenda for the next four years, after a campaign in which he sparred with Republican opponent Mitt Romney over the pipeline and on issues such as subsidies for alternative energy companies, the future of the coal industry, and drilling policy on federal lands and along the nation’s coasts.

Green-energy and environmental groups said Wednesday that they were buoyed by the president’s re-election and that they think it will kick off another chapter for clean energy in America. Mr. Obama’s previous attempt to tackle carbon emissions, the ill-fated and unpopular “cap-and-trade bill,” died in the Democrat-dominated Congress during Mr. Obama’s first two years in office, but many of the president’s supporters see his re-election as an opportunity to resurrect it. “The public stands with us from clean energy to addressing climate change. This election and our polling indicate a mandate from the American people on the environment and public health. Now is the time to act,” said Heather Taylor-Miesele, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council Action Fund. “The environment won, and polluting industries lost. There is no clearer way to state it,” said Jamie Rappaport Clark, president of the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund. “The biggest winners last night are the generations yet to come as Americans overwhelmingly chose to leave them a cleaner, better world in which to live.”

Supporters and opponents of the $7 billion Keystone project wasted little time in putting pressure on the president after Tuesday’s vote. Within hours of the Democrat’s win, each side again made its case to Mr. Obama, who late last year put off a decision about the pipeline. “Americans have made their decision. Right off the bat, the president can approve the Keystone pipeline and put thousands of Americans to work immediately,” said Jack Gerard, president and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute.